dagblog - Comments for "The failure of #Muslimrage"

185 face trial for riots over

artappraiser — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 03:32:30 +0000

In reply to The failure of #Muslimrage

185 face trial for riots over hate film
Dawn newspaper, Pakistan, one day ago

KARACHI: Courts in Rawalpindi, Karachi and Lahore granted remand of at least 185 people on Saturday in cases pertaining to riots and arson attacks that took place during the protests against the anti-Islam film made in the United States.

Twenty-three people lost their lives in Karachi and Peshawar while over 200 were injured on Friday across the country as the government-designated “day of love for Holy Prophet (peace be upon him)” saw protests and demonstrations turn anarchic.

Courts in Rawalpindi sent 77 suspects to Adiala jail on a 14-day judicial remand while in Karachi, at least 72 suspects were remanded in police custody by an anti-terrorism court and a judicial magistrate on charges of torching cinemas, banks, police vans, attacking policemen and destroying public as well as private properties.

Five cinema houses, three police vans, three banks and countless shops were set on fire and looted during the mayhem that overtook Karachi two days ago.

In Lahore, an anti-terror court sent 36 arrested protesters to jail on judicial remand. They faced charges of terrorism, ransacking/torching public and private property, attempted murder and attack on police. Police had registered a case against 6,036 protesters.

Police in Faisalabad district registered two cases against more than 400 people, 200 of them belonging to the outlawed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, on charges of firing live rounds into the air and pelting police with stones [....]

PM House, ANP disown

artappraiser — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 03:29:00 +0000

In reply to The failure of #Muslimrage

PM House, ANP disown minister’s statement: Bilour in the soup over bounty

By Zulfiqar Ali and Khawar Ghumman, Dawn newspaper (Pakistan,) 6 hours ago

PESHAWAR / ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: The Prime Minister’s Office and the ANP disassociated themselves on Sunday from a bounty offered by Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour for anyone who kills the producer of an anti-Islam film [....]

Also at Dawn.com:

PM condemns bounty on anti-Islam filmmaker: spokesman, 22 hours ago

Pakistan also called a

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 07:44:46 +0000

In reply to The failure of #Muslimrage

Pakistan also called a national protest.

However, might be

1) most Muslim countries post-Arab Spring may have discovered protests don't necessarily favor the current regime. And might not favor the instigators either.

2) post-Arab Spring Muslims have had exposed the cynical corruption and two-timing behind the scenes (Wikileaks, et al)

3) Muslims are seeing what are effective protests and which are useless. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, now Syria...

4) More internet in the Muslim world - people aren't relying on outrage to filter through their Imam, and irreverent humor is easily mixed in with sincere beliefs - no more monopoly on the field of ideas.

Issandr El Amrani (of

artappraiser — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 04:14:06 +0000

In reply to The failure of #Muslimrage

Issandr El Amrani (of Arabist.net) on Egypt and the "angry young men vs. police" sport:

Walls of Shame
By ISSANDR EL AMRANI, Latitude @ International Tribune, September 20

CAIRO —[....]

Though the outrage over a “film” disparaging the Prophet Muhammad [....] remains very much alive, many Cairenes have rejected the protests that lasted for several days last week outside the U.S. Embassy.

Conversations with ordinary people, as well as the opinion pages of the major local newspapers, reveal both indignation over the film and embarrassment over the small yet intense protests it sparked. Part of this feeling comes from protest-fatigue; part of it from discomfiture that a small crowd of young rioters is being magnified on television screens as a major riot. This was not Benghazi or Sana, after all: after the first day a few hundred participated at most.

The protests outside the U.S. Embassy were sustained in good part by angry young men (and often boys) for whom fighting the police has become a favorite sport over the past year of clashes. Eyewitnesses report seeing soccer fans and young radicals among them, which may explain why, amid the religious slogans graffitied on the walls of the embassy, are the initials “A.C.A.B.” This is the universal call sign of a transnational group of soccer fanatics known as Ultras, and it means “All Cops Are Bastards.”[....]

And there’s the matter of the double standard that is created when a sheikh who burned a Bible — rather perplexingly, since Muslims consider it a holy book — is free whereas Christians who insult Islam face immediate backlash [....]